Britain's Hidden Religion: In Last Week's NS a Host of Distinguished Writers Debated What Place God Should Have in Our Society. Here We Continue the Argument, Beginning with the Strange Case of the Celebrated Atheist Who Converted to Deism, the Faith Many of Us Share-Without Even Knowing It

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A little while ago I telephoned Professor Antony Flew at his home in Reading. The philosopher once described as "the world's most famous atheist" was having his lunch. Could I call back later? When I did, however, the greatman was not exactly forthcoming. "Professor Flew," I began, "I wonder if you would be willing to be interviewed for the New Statesman?""I am old and decrepit," replied the prof, "but my mind is still sharp. So my answer is no." Click, brrrr.

The reason for Flew's refusal, and his brevity, was not some curious dislike for the NS. The answer lies in the designation above. He may once have been described as "the world's most famous atheist", but no more. Flew caused a stir - made news around the world, in fact--in 2004, when it was reported that he now believed in God. There had already been rumours of his "conversion" three years previously, which he denied with a response titled: "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still an atheist!" This time they were confirmed. New scientific discoveries persuaded him, he said, "that intelligence must have been involved" in producing life. He later backtracked on the reasons for his change of heart, saying he had been misled by the evidence he'd been presented with, a statement that attracted some derision in humanist and philosophical circles. Which is why, I suspect, that at the age of 86, Flew doesn't want to go into all this in depth again.

He does, however, still believe in God--or, in his case, god. For Flew had become not a Christian, but a deist, a distinction the British Humanist Association correctly noted on its website, where it continued for a while to list him as a "distinguished supporter" with the regretful rider: "Professor Flew has recently become a deist. Nevertheless, we would like to thank him for his many years of support." Flew was no more sympathetic to the revealed religions of the Book, with their "monstrous Oriental despots" of gods, as he called them, than before. He had simply come to the conclusion that, at the very least, there was probably some kind of "first cause"; and that this, rather than an interventionist deity presiding over an afterlife, was what he meant by "god".

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Most people have probably never heard of the term deism, or, if they had, would fail to distinguish it from theism. The confusion would be understandable given that the two terms' derivations differ merely in that deist comes from the Latin deus and theist from the Greek these, and that both mean "god". The two are very different, however. Deists believe in a god who created but does not intervene in the universe. That god, however, does not have to be anything more than an entity that set creation in motion. It does not give you the anthropomorphised deity to whom many believers pray, nor any of the trappings and beliefs that we associate with religion. Theism, on the other hand, implies belief in the God of the Abrahamic religions, who remains present to and active within the world at the same time as transcendent over it.

But, from the Enlightenment onwards, the influence of deism has been vast. Many of America's Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, were deists, as were the philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire and the English radical pamphleteer Tom Paine. The precise nature of Flew's deism is a matter of considerable controversy. Some allege that the philosopher has been taken advantage of, and that his 2007 book There Is a God was mainly the work of his American co-author, Roy Varghese, although Flew vigorously denies this. Nevertheless, many felt that the book lacked the coherence and style of his earlier works, such as God and Philosophy and his essay "The Presumption of Atheism", and did not show the brilliance of a mind known to generations of undergraduates. …